Popper: Armstrong's triumph over cancer gave hope to millions

I’ve never watched a bicycle race. Not one Tour de France. Not one of the hyped Lance Armstrong treks through some beautiful mountain range. Not the Olympics. Not one.

My knowledge of Armstrong began with the clips that I’d wade through on ESPN of some race in some foreign locale hoping that they’d get back to baseball or basketball. And, like most people, I’d imagine, my awareness exponentially increased when he was diagnosed with testicular cancer that had spread to his brain and lungs, then mounted the astounding comeback from a death sentence to elite rider.

As amazing as that was at the time, the attention he garnered for that paled in comparison to the ugly spectacle Armstrong has made of his life. He has been stripped of his titles, banned from the sport, pulled from his endorsements and forced to leave Livestrong — the cancer awareness fundraising behemoth that he helped found — in disgrace.

The massive report from the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency pulled the cover off the path of lies, more than a thousand pages detailing his fraud with testimony from teammates, opponents and just about everyone — except him. That one nagging detail changed this week with Armstrong confessing to Oprah Winfrey that he did use performance-enhancing drugs, a confession that likely is rife — like most aspects of the last decade of Armstrong’s life — with self-serving motives.

But here’s my other confession: I don’t care about any of that.

My real interest in Armstrong came when my wife was diagnosed with stage 4 lymph node and tonsil cancer 10 years after his diagnosis. Dizzy with the news, uncertain about doctors and possible treatment protocols that were wildly different and facing the real prognosis that none of it might work, we turned anywhere for answers.

One of the places we turned was the book that Armstrong co-authored, “It’s Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life.” He was a name I knew, the rider who’d come back from doctors telling him his cancer might be incurable.

He’d already begun inspiring legions adorned in the ubiquitous yellow wristbands. His message was simple and bold — to fight, to take control of your treatment and not to take no for an answer. I didn’t care if my thoughts on cycling to that point were that he’d inspired people who shouldn’t be wearing them to squeeze into skintight cycling shorts and shirts. I handed my wife the book and talked out passages with her as she underwent months of arduous treatment at Hackensack University Medical Center.

Her doctors told her it helped, that a positive attitude is a part of the treatment, as certain as the poisonous chemicals pumped into her veins and the debilitating radiation to which she was subjected. Now nearly six years cancer-free, she believes it.

Now we know so much more about Armstrong. We know he cheated. We know he lied. We know he bullied teammates and anyone who was going to blow the whistle on him.

As bad as it all is, most of it falls under the umbrella of the old Richard Pryor joke — caught cheating by his wife, he said the tactic was to deny, deny, deny. There is plenty of evidence that Armstrong tried to steamroll anyone who got in his way, threatening and silencing those who would destroy the myth, doing anything to deny what our eyes told us was true.

It’s terrible, but if he made life hell for a half-dozen people and inspired — dare we say saved — thousands, how do we reconcile that? Whatever his reason for coming clean now, if he hands out the apologies and finishes off the long docket of lawsuits chasing him, can we declare it a truce?

The problem is, we’re hurting ourselves now more than we’re hurting Armstrong.

The USADA already did him in, deflated the hero. But when he stepped away from Livestrong, did we now ruin something far bigger than a bicycle race?

The New York Times reported that 35 of the top 70 riders in his seven Tour de France wins have either admitted using performance-enhancing drugs or been sanctioned for testing positive. So his crimes are not the only ones that the cycling world needs to find a better understanding of, a sport that has its own self-assessment to figure, too.

The 41-year-old Armstrong is believed to be confessing to cut the lifetime ban from cycling down to something that will allow him to return. But the important thing isn’t if he ever wins another race, if he can salvage an endorsement deal or if he can find the last shreds of dignity in his tattered reputation.

It’s not about Lance for once. It’s about the hope he provided. In demonizing and chasing him to the finish line, have we sacrificed something more important?

Armstrong preceded his interview with Oprah by stopping by the Livestrong headquarters and apologizing to the staff. That’s the real crime now — that a dollar that might have gone to the organization might now not make it, that a glimmer of hope that might have gone on to one desperate patient might not come to light.

The book he wrote wasn’t just inspirational to countless patients and families in need of something to believe in.